*Bad Press and the NHS

That is a staggering amount of money which is paid out for incidents that shouldn’t happen. I believe that the NHS is understaffed and that a lot of NHS staff are overworked and tired which can result in mistakes being made, mistakes which can have a huge impact on someone’s life. Sadly some of the incidents of negligence have resulted in fatalities and life long disabilities for the people involved.

After reading how much money is being spent on negligence claims in London I was horrified to then read that the NHS has paid a whopping 1.4bn in redundancies since the last election but that’s not the worst part. Lax rules have allowed hundreds of NHS managers to receive a large pay out then walk into a new job within the NHS only weeks later. I think it is disgusting especially when that money could be spent employing more NHS staff, more staff would mean less overworked people and hopefully in turn less incidents of negligence.

Another statistic from the survey revealed that 36% of people are worried that doctors aren’t listening to them – this is something I have felt myself. A doctor usually spends around 8-10 minutes with a patient, this just isn’t long enough. I have often felt rushed out of the room when attending a doctor’s appointment especially if they are running behind. I also feel that when an appointment is 10 minutes long it can be difficult to discuss everything you wanted to with your doctor. This again goes back to the fact that the NHS is understaffed meaning people aren’t getting the service they should.

I am hoping the NHS will be able to resolve the issues it currently faces so we can once again have an NHS service we can all be proud of.